Thread: What you all like or dislike about various controls

Robert,

As I said earlier, they are standard now. The older machines were not, we have several to prove it.

The mills have non standard code as well.

Instead of G54, G55, etc., Okuma uses G15 H1, G15 H2, etc for the work offsets.

Instead of G43 H1 for tool length on tool one, Okuma uses G54 H1.

Instead of G98 and G99, Okuma uses an M52 or M53. To use the M53, you need to program a G71 on the Z clearance plane. This one really makes me scratch my head. How is that better than G98 or G99?

There are also differences in the G83 cycle. Okuma cannot do a decreasing peck depth like Fanuc. It can combine a chip breaker with a peck, which is kind of neat.

Okuma has no G10 line. You have to use the Okuma variables like VZOF[Z] to set work offsets.

Originally Posted by SeymourDumore

You might want to rephrase that part.
The BASIC you might have used, but it was just a command interpreter running on the top of the machine code.
If you ran out of BASIC options, you had to go to machine language, their equivalent of assembly.
That is true today as well BTW.

Not saying to protect Fanuc either way, but their biggest problem is the UI and not it's capability.
As for human readable code, I'd ask a Chinese, Japanese, Russian programmer/operator on that one.
G-code is quite readable and is easily learned by anyone from any language background.
Know the alphabet and numbers from 0-9, you can be fluent in G-code in a day.

Commodores (and other computers of that era) had assemblers as well as machine code. Assembly language is supposed to be just a human readable version of machine code.

G code is like assembly language. And not a well organized assembly language. Heidenhain's .H files are also like assembly language, but a well organized one, and far more human readable - in any country speaking any language - than G code. The sole reason for G code is to make the program compact enough to run on paper tape. Paper tape went out with lace up leggings and muskets, sometime in the last millennium.

Originally Posted by swarf_rat

Heidenhain's .H files .

Aka Heidenhain Plain Language Format

Anilam was prolly the sweetest for me, G&Ls 8000A &8000B were great as well.
The graghics on the Anilam were way cool.
Most all my work was tool work, no production.
I usta dislike Dynapaths as a operator,but as a owner now I see its MANY pluses.

I think maybe alot depends on the working conditions of the shop your in as a operator,iffin its cool and good,the controls is good?no?
Gw

I've used Fanuc controls for most of my career, and found them to be the best designed , well laid out, and easily used controls of all tim... aawwww nurse... its not time for my medication again is it?

Gawd... I'm back in reality

Actually I used to like the Fanucs, whether I was using an OM or an OT or an 18T or a 21T , the code was pretty standard, but then everything is dependent on knowing what G codes do what plus
being able read a Japanese technical manual that had been translated into English by a Korean translator who spoke neither langauge.
And dont even get me started on the stupid 'pay us $$$$$ and we'll turn on a option for you' by Fanuc.... because the machines are usually bought by beancounters who say "Helical milling? must be some sort of Satanist machining method... naww we dont need that and it will save us $500 per machine"

Moving along to some more modern controls... IE not one from the late 1960's

Heidenhain (or Highonpain if you prefer)
OK the old 131 or 145 series controls were a little basic, but so long as you understood what the control was asking "Drill depth?" hmmmmm maybe that how deep the drill goes....
But in other regards even as late as the TNC370 , only having one datum was a complete pain in the **** when faced with multiple datums.... even the Fanucs of antiquity had 6
But now we're in the era on the TNC530i , the first ever control that feels like its been designed to be easy to use, Tools? multiple offsets available for every tool, a datum shift table so you can program do datum shifts by table and not have to scan the program and hope you've changed every 1 , multiple datums.. yes sir how many would you like?, proper file management so you can stuff programs in folders by customer name
and not have to worry if program O3542 belongs to Bloggins widgets or Smash it and bash it design solutions.
Not to mention a simple 'logbook' function that allows you to dump out every keypress over the last say 24hrs and see exactly where the operator decided to play with the offset table and smash a 8" dia milling tool through the 4th axis.
Plus the free DNC software, the free technical manuals, the free help files you can load in, the updates , and that here in England you can call the servicing dept. and they'll come out pretty quick to fix things... 2 days for the last call out

As for citizen sliding head controls, they give me mixed emotions best described as

Boris

Dicer, please at least check out their website or a tutorial on their controls! Yes! You can use their control for all and everything! It can have any, ANY windows based software downloaded into it! They also have their own cad/cam system which can come with the controller that will cut your set up times down to nothing! Imagine, being able to draw, design, write your process , program , prove out, debug, fine tune .set up and run right on your controls faster, more efficiently than any other! P200 is what everyone wants whether they know it or not!

Edster, I completely concur with you on sim and tlm. Don't know why that guy said that? I have a question for you , you said the program automatically resets the load limits when you set it back up? In what way did you mean? I do the same things with my machine as far as tlm and monitoring and when setting repeat jobs up I only know to either manually punch in numbers saved or allow control to run through auto set again for ballpark figures. Please clarify, I'm very interested! Thanks!

To load program in Fanuc 21 control

Load flash card
Edit
Offset setting
system
ALL IO
PROGRM
Page (if needed)
OPRT
F READ
Key in file number
F SET
EXEC

Not a joke.

Originally Posted by John Welden

To load program in Fanuc 21 control

Load flash card
Edit
Offset setting
system
ALL IO
PROGRM
Page (if needed)
OPRT
F READ
Key in file number
F SET
EXEC

Not a joke.

On Okuma P200 from USB:

Load USB key.

Press Edit
Press Other Direct.
Press US1 or US2
Highlight program
Press Copy
Press MD1 Copy

Now it's in the machine

To make it active:

Press Auto
Press Main Program
Press Prog Select
Press MD1
Hightlight program
Press Enter
Press Enter
Press Close

No joke. Older controls with floppy drives are even more cryptic.


Now on a Dynapath Delta 10 or Delta 20, just hit "mode select" and press 6. Then hit "load" and the RS232 will load whatever is waiting.

To drip feed, just go to the Program Select area and key in "RS232C" and press "enter". Then go to Auto mode and hit cycle start.

It's dead simple. Of course you have to use RS232. This is a 30 year old control.

John, that is a joke.

To load a program on my Heidenhain 426:

Open the TNCRemo program on your PC if not already open (supplied as a free download from Heidenhain)
Click the "connect" button, displays an Explorer-like view of all files on the machine
Drag and drop whatever programs you want to/from machine, they are transferred over wireless E-net

You're done.

To make it active:

Press the Program Management button
Highlight program with cursor keys
Press Enter

Done.

PS: this control was released in 1996, making it a 16 year old design - and still decades ahead of Fanuc's newest offerings.

Sorry, double post

Originally Posted by james siffel

Edster, I completely concur with you on sim and tlm. Don't know why that guy said that? I have a question for you , you said the program automatically resets the load limits when you set it back up? In what way did you mean? I do the same things with my machine as far as tlm and monitoring and when setting repeat jobs up I only know to either manually punch in numbers saved or allow control to run through auto set again for ballpark figures. Please clarify, I'm very interested! Thanks!

You can either do the auto set for the load monitoring or you can set the loads manually for each page. You can also use pip to save the loads to a file and reload them later. My personal favorite method is to set the loads in the program right before you turn on the load monitoring. I like this the best because I keep using the first page of 64 so I don't have to hunt through the pages when one goes off.

Heres an example

VLMZB[2]=16 ( PART NUMBER 2 ) ( Z BASE LOAD )
VLMZ1[2]=18 ( PART NUMBER 2 ) ( Z FIRST LIMIT )
VLMZ2[2]=20 ( PART NUMBER 2 ) ( Z SECOND LIMIT )

VLMXB[8]=19 ( PART NUMBER 8 ) ( X BASE LOAD )
VLMX1[8]=21 ( PART NUMBER 8 ) ( X FIRST LIMIT )
VLMX2[8]=23 ( PART NUMBER 8 ) ( X SECOND LIMIT )

VLMMB[8]=19 ( PART NUMBER 8 ) ( M BASE LOAD )
VLMM1[8]=21 ( PART NUMBER 8 ) ( M FIRST LIMIT )
VLMM2[8]=23 ( PART NUMBER 8 ) ( M SECOND LIMIT )

I can't take credit for this I learned it from budgiew from the zone, it wasn't anywhere in the manual that I could find.

Okuma has great cycles, absolute encoders and the "zero set" key that makes things easy.
G codes are off from other controls but cycles are very powerful and well thought out.
However it "doesn't play well with others." Communications can be a challenge. User Task (macro) language is a bit balky.

Fanuc has VERY powerful macro language, great communications capability and superior 3rd party support.
It also has a continuity of user interface that Okuma doesn't have,

Mazatrol is great for beginners. But you outgrow it quickly.

Originally Posted by John Welden

To load program in Fanuc 21 control

Load flash card
Edit
Offset setting
system
ALL IO
PROGRM
Page (if needed)
OPRT
F READ
Key in file number
F SET
EXEC

Not a joke.

On a Fanuc 21i :

Load flash card
Edit
tab to "card"
F READ
Key in file number
F SET
EXEC


With manual guide on any Fanuc:

Load flash card
M-card
read in or read out
select program
exec

We have just added 2 Miyano lathes and a Citizen (Miyano) lathe to our shop, all Fanuc, and the install time was ridicules. All 3 machines required a tech from the distributer, a tech from Fanuc, and a team from Miyano to spend a week on the phone trying to get all the parameters set properly and all the options enabled to turn the damn things on. Also, I don't understand how a company can stay competitive calling RS-232 (which we were told was outdated and we would probably never actually see in use almost 15 years ago) and a PCMCIA slot features. My car can automatically connect to my phone through bluetooth and access my stored music folder or route phone calls through the built in mic and speakers, so why can a $300,000 machine not even have simple ethernet connectivity? Even our HAAS has USB as an option, although I have no idea where to even find a 3.5" disk to put in the standard drive. The Haas interface, while looking outdated in comparison to say, an original Playstation, is still decades beyond Fanuc in ease of use and intuitiveness. For example, others have posted how difficult it is to load a program on Fanuc, while on our HAAS it is simply:
Edit
List Programs
End
Recieve

I see no reason why in this day and age we cannot access a remote hard drive over a network and simple drag and drop to a local folder. That was standard technology 20 years ago for everyone else.

Originally Posted by ewlsey

On Okuma P200 from USB:

Load USB key.

Press Edit
Press Other Direct.
Press US1 or US2
Highlight program
Press Copy
Press MD1 Copy

Now it's in the machine

To make it active:

Press Auto
Press Main Program
Press Prog Select
Press MD1
Hightlight program
Press Enter
Press Enter
Press Close

No joke. Older controls with floppy drives are even more cryptic.

Wow. Didn't think it could get worse.

Originally Posted by Xjenderfloip

On a Fanuc 21i :

Load flash card
Edit
tab to "card"
F READ
Key in file number
F SET
EXEC


With manual guide on any Fanuc:

Load flash card
M-card
read in or read out
select program
exec

I will try that on monday, thanks.

It only takes a couple mouse clicks (or use the touchscreen) for me on my okuma p200's

click the explorer icon I added to the taskbar
drag my file (or copy and paste) from the usb stick to the MD1 directory

push auto mode button
push select program button and select the program

push cycle start

You can also load programs the old school way.

Press memory button
select the directory or devise and list the directory
copy file to MD1 (machines memory)

Then you select the program
push auto mode button
push select program button
select program
cycle start

Not too difficult in my opinion, and yes I used to have a fanuc to compair it to. I needed a cheat sheet on a sticky by the machine to remember how to load the program on the fanuc.

Is there no need for an O set to give it a program #/location in the memory on the 21i?

Originally Posted by Winterfalke

I see no reason why in this day and age we cannot access a remote hard drive over a network and simple drag and drop to a local folder. That was standard technology 20 years ago for everyone else.

See my post #30 above. Heidenhain has been doing this for at least a decade. I hate to praise them for it, because even they are well behind the technology curve. But Fanuc has no technology curve. Just a flatline. "G1", they call it, just to be cryptic.